It appears the time has come to submit the distorted relationship between big business and the press to public debate. One observer after another is commenting on the way that the press’s duties of monitoring and checking the big business in our society has been nullified as the press internalizes an attitude of voluntary obedience in the face of big business’s indiscriminate onslaught. If things continue on in this manner, the press may eventually be shunned by readers, while businesses could face a major boycott campaign by consumers in South Korea and overseas.

The recent situation with Toyota shows what happens when the press bows to big business and remains silent. The Japanese book “Darkness of Toyota,” which has been published in a translated Korean edition, openly depicts the situation that has transpired in Japan where the automaker has gagged the media as it spends huge amounts on advertising. Wearing the leash of Toyota’s advertising money, media outlets have voluntarily reduced and omitted negative articles about the company. As a result, a major defect in Toyota automobiles went concealed and uncorrected for a long period of time before ultimately suddenly erupting in the way we are seeing now. In using advertising as bait to silence the press, Toyota has wound up spending a tremendous amount of money bringing disaster upon itself.

Unfortunately, Samsung, the symbol of the power of the big business in South Korea, is treading a path that is all too similar to Toyota’s. The response of the South Korean press to attorney and Samsung whistle-blower of 2007 Kim Yong-chul’s recently published book “Thinking about Samsung (Samseong-eul Saenggakhada)” is but a single example. Using vast amounts of advertising money as its weapon, Samsung has effectively pacified the majority of the South Korean media, with the exception of some progressive news outlets. We have now arrived at a point where even if no pressure is applied or favors asked with regard to certain stories, the press takes it upon itself either to not write anything critical about Samsung at all or to minimize the criticism, and to busy themselves coming up with pieces suited to Samsung’s tastes. The relationship between the South Korean press and Samsung is a faithful reproduction of the one that has existed between the Japanese press and Toyota.

Is Samsung satisfied in finally seeing all its advertising expenditures to date bearing fruit? If it is enjoying the situation, then that is the greatest crisis facing Samsung. Untrammeled power is fated to corruption, and ultimately travels the path to destruction. And the press, blinded by the carrot dangled in front of it, needs to realize that it is a narcotic. Perhaps the company’s earnings will improve in the short term through currying favor with Samsung. But the longer this situation continues, the more people lose trust in the press and become more distant as readers. A newspaper cannot survive in the long run without readers. As it stands, the press is engaged in a relationship with capital that is intoxicated with a sweet kiss that is leading it to doom.

What needs to be done? To begin with, Samsung needs to prepare itself to humbly submit to some criticism. It is excessively greedy to want to bend the press to its will. The criticism will not only include healthy, constructive criticism. There will also be a great deal of slander with ulterior motives. Still, it is even more poisonous for Samsung to do what it is doing now, preventing any critical voices from emerging at all. And even if it is possible to gag the domestic media, what will they do about the foreign press? Toyota also succeeded in taming the Japanese press, but it could do nothing about critical public opinion in the U.S., as shown by this latest incident.

Currently, it appears impossible to expect the press to freely criticize Samsung without regard for advertising. A few progressive outlets like the Hankyoreh and Kyunghyang newspapers are struggling to make their voices heard, and are incurring losses in the process, but this is not enough to loosen big business’s grip on the media. In the end, the only way forward is for all media outlets to come together and engage in continuous efforts at reviving the press’s function of checking big business in society. Most important in this process is the pioneering role of a large newspaper company that is relatively free from Samsung’s grasp. We need to spread the awareness that this is ultimately the way for the media as a whole to survive together, while saving Samsung in the process.

Major stumbling blocks to this are big business’s greedy desire to keep the press under its thumb, and the press itself, thrust into a competition for economic survival. However, it is also clear that if things continue in their current direction, Samsung will find itself in dire straits and the press will lose its place. The time has come for the press and big business to begin seriously considering a different path to sustainable coexistence.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]